First off - I believe you overestimate the popularity of Burning Crusade. Just because a bunch of people on the forums are clamoring for their love of BC doesn't mean that the majority who left were exclusively fans of BC.

Secondly - you have to ask yourself "WHY were they fans of BC". Were they because of the demons? Or was it because of the gameplay design of the heroics/raids, the tier separation between players and the nonexistence of Daily quest grinds?

My point is that they will be expecting Burning Crusade part 2 - and what they'll get is Mists of Pandaria gameplay painted to look like the Burning Legion.

Will it boost subs? Sure! But I'm MORE than betting that those BC fans will bail JUST as fast as the Diablo 2 fans did from Diablo III when they find out it's NOT a return to Burning Crusade gameplay.

...of course that's assuming it IS a Burning Legion expansion. :P

And then there's people like me who absolutely loved TBC. However, having been repeatedly disappointed with Blizzard products recently, at this point even if they made a true attempt at bringing WoW back to that model, I personally would not be coming back.

Blizzard is gonna regret changing their model from wrath, easy gearing of alts Naxx was perfect in that regard tier gear/trinkets/Offhands all purchasable with valor not to mention the Community was Alive with puggable raids OS/Maly/Naxx and GDKP runs.

They aren't rejecting the expansion. You do realize there are a significant number of free to play mmos in Asian markets right? They are rejecting subscription based mmos not Mop. Look I get it people hate pandas but stop twisting facts to push your inane agenda.

Originally Posted by xanzul

My point is that it is clear as day that they are rejecting the subscription model not Mop and not even necessarily Wow. Care to point out any subscription based mmos that picked up a few million subscriptions in Asian markets that same quarter? No? Gee I wonder why.

Originally Posted by Archdruid Dehydrate

...

I don't support what Xanzul says or what the others (They know who they are) say either, your all just acting like children in general. The Asian market has changed and will continue, its like I said before WoW may of been success in the Eastern Market before, but may not anymore. WoW is a successful Western Market MMO and will continue to be. You can't rule a market forever & Blizzard prbly knows this. But if people in Asia enjoy WoW still they can, its not like WoW is dead in China, its just not the popular one over there anymore & it toke 8 years to do that. But its still the popular one in the Western Market. F2P in China blossomed out of nowhere, you can't combat that.

Pann is 100% right about one thing, F2P in China basically blindsided Blizzard / Netease, you can't combat F2P with a P2P that is 8 years old and showing its age, maybe in the West you can. But Eastern you can't.

Are you even bothering to research what you say or just take and make up this things as you wish?

You think the Chinese or Asian P2P market is taken over by F2P, as WoW declined and one new F2P title appeared to have gained quite some popularity? Now you marginalize WoWs losses as a shift of the market to F2P at cost of P2P and put blame on the market rejecting its business model. This is begging some questions: Why are you under the impression that WoW represents the entire Chinese or Asian P2P MMO market or F2P are even to blame for the majority of WoWs losses?

Are you aware it does not take the Chinese or Asian P2P market to implode, for their F2P market to grow or a single F2P game to boom?
Are you aware NetEase P2P MMO earnings have grown, despite of WoW pulling them back down to zeroplusminus with other F2P losses?
Are you aware near all of the Asian (China, Taiwan, Korea and Japan) top MMOs are subscription based by the definition of Blizzard, some of them over 10 years old?

You are inventing a collapse of the entire Chinese or Asian P2P MMO market for an excuse. That is quite a stretch if not more than that.

Whiteknights then: '[…] the AVERAGE of 44 professional reviews on the internet is 90% at the moment. That makes your opinion with 5/10 ... meaningless and VERY trolly. You can't counter ALL professional reviews, so explain what makes YOUR unique thought anything worth while to even read […] Whiteknights now: Not for the millions of fans of Warcraft As you see: no one can "judge" a film but yourself. What IS IDIOTIC though is "professional viewers" rating this movie a 0-3/10, […]'

so if MoP continue to lose sub, can we conclude that MoP is the least successful expansion blizzard ever released? Sales wise it already is, 2.8 millions in the first week versus 3.3 millions in the first 24 hours for cata. but sub wise, the is the lowest it's ever been since vanilla.

It was implied. You know it, I know it, and Osmeric certainly knows it because it is one of his usual tricks to deflect.

I never said Blizzard doesn't make a profit. I AM saying their revenue from WoW is declining, if examined correctly. One can lie about that using GAAP numbers to confuse year-on-year comparisons.

Also, Benbos was using GAAP numbers to try to estimate number of subscribers, which is bogus.

Last edited by Osmeric; 2013-05-20 at 03:53 PM.

"There is a pervasive myth that making content hard will induce players to rise to the occasion. We find the opposite. " -- Ghostcrawler
"Almost every time I have gotten to know a critic personally, they keep up with the criticism but lose the venom." -- Ghostcrawler
"Nothing will ever be attempted if all possible objections must first be overcome." -- Samuel Johnson

I think their sub numbers will go below 6mil before next quarter, because of the casual pvper being killed in 5.3 patch who doesn't want to pve at all. I think there are more people like me out there who didn't want everything they worked for gear wise to be made useless overnight cause I had mostly malv gear with about 4 tyran pieces I didn't care to do arena or rbg's just did randoms, and cta if it was a good 1. I made my conquest with wins that way from doing that no questing cause that crap is boring, just like dungeons, scenarios, and raids. Before someone says I'm scared to let skill decide is why I quit, it's a game I don't care if I die 20 times in a bg and I have from dumb allies who would rather keep killing a rogue at LH then go and cap WW or mines, so I would sacrifice myself. I also would always go after the alliance's best player to see if i could kill them, I'm not afraid of a fair fight I like them actually but I don't like what I have chosen as my playing style being made irrelevent by a patch. I took my lumps getting more honor gear, didn't mind it either cause I knew I would get it, why should my grind be made irrelevent compared to someone who pve's?

I think their sub numbers will go below 6mil before next quarter, because of the casual pvper being killed in 5.3 patch who doesn't want to pve at all. I think there are more people like me out there who didn't want everything they worked for gear wise to be made useless overnight cause I had mostly malv gear with about 4 tyran pieces I didn't care to do arena or rbg's just did randoms, and cta if it was a good 1. I made my conquest with wins that way from doing that no questing cause that crap is boring, just like dungeons, scenarios, and raids. Before someone says I'm scared to let skill decide is why I quit, it's a game I don't care if I die 20 times in a bg and I have from dumb allies who would rather keep killing a rogue at LH then go and cap WW or mines, so I would sacrifice myself. I also would always go after the alliance's best player to see if i could kill them, I'm not afraid of a fair fight I like them actually but I don't like what I have chosen as my playing style being made irrelevent by a patch. I took my lumps getting more honor gear, didn't mind it either cause I knew I would get it, why should my grind be made irrelevent compared to someone who pve's?

I'm predicting another drop. 5.3 just didn't add enough for me. Sure, we've got the barrens thing, and the storyline is decent, but that's all the patch was to me. I certainly don't view it as an interesting or encompassing patch. However, it's not that long since 5.2 released so I can let it slip. I don't view 5.1 as interesting either. I actually view it as frustrating on several points.

So, I'm predicting a drop, and that we'll be under 8M players by the time the next stats are out. The game isn't dead, but I don't think there's anything that can be done to keep players from leaving. No matter how good the content is, the sub numbers just aren't going to recover.

Originally Posted by oraz4000

Blizzard is gonna regret changing their model from wrath, easy gearing of alts Naxx was perfect in that regard tier gear/trinkets/Offhands all purchasable with valor not to mention the Community was Alive with puggable raids OS/Maly/Naxx and GDKP runs.

Unfortunately, Wrath was a victim of it's own success (at least in a sense). It started off with people hopeful for the future of the game because hey, we were finally closing off the story Warcraft 3 and the environments took a major step up in quality compared to TBC. The art direction changed but it remained in true Blizzard style. The raids were unfortunately lacking. Naxxramas is content that a large number of players in my own group had already done in Vanilla, perhaps not through to clearing it, but at least some of the bosses. Malygos was viewed as a frustrating fight by many of us due not only to vehicles, but because of the seizure-inducing rainbow tunnel. Sartharion was initially just content we wanted to ignore, but became the pinnacle of our progression with drakes up.

Ulduar rolled around and suddenly the game looked like it was back on track. This beautifully designed instance with contrasting areas but a very logical feel throughout. It didn't provide much continuity with the story but we didn't care because we were having fun. Truly I felt like we'd reached the pinnacle of content with Ulduar. Unfortunately I still view that as the truth (though ToT did go some way towards that goal, it didn't set a new standard).

3.2 dragged itself in, and that's when it was over. I knew from the moment I saw we were in the same room for the second boss that the raid group was done for. 3.2 completely gutted the group, people leaving left and right. They finally added in the "PVP in PVE" fight that people seemed to have been clamouring for, and this only further compacted the frustration we all felt at the patch. It was a long patch for all of us, but too much for some.

3.3 showed up and I was hopeful. Unfortunately, the shine wore off quickly and over the space of 2 months, the group was down to just a few left. Even those that had returned after the 3.2 hiatus couldn't stomach ICC. I personally didn't think ICC was bad. It wasn't Ulduar and it certainly wasn't contrasting, but it wasn't the worst raid I've ever done, and as it stands, the Lich King fight is up there fighting for the top spot with the Illidan fight (I view both as being very engaging and very intense). 3.3 was a longer patch, and it's what finished the guild off completely.

Wrath started off on a good note, tranquillised itself with the release raids, revived itself with Ulduar, then killed itself with ToC. It had everything going for it at release, but it didn't exploit it properly. In trying to keep some continuity with the story through ToC, Blizzard ruined any notions of it being the greatest expansion ever released.

3.2 added PVP queueing from anywhere (at least I recall it as being added in 3.2). This really started the trend of 'laziness' for me. No longer needing to visit a battlemaster, while convenient, was the first of several moves to make the game less about the community. 3.3 updated the LFD system. I don't view LFD as a bad feature, but I view it as adding further convenience that just made us all lazier and more demanding because of it. Being able to queue for anything from anywhere is what destroyed any reason for me to progress raid. When LFR was released an expansion later, I removed all reasons for progress raiding even if I wanted to. Most people I'd raided with had moved on during Wrath and Cataclysm, so there was no reason for me to do anything but sit back and take the lazy route. I could get gear, see the content, and spend my time doing what I wanted. I do view this as a good thing for me nowadays (now that I've got something else to focus on and develop), but I will admit I miss the intensity I felt within the game prior to 3.2.

so if MoP continue to lose sub, can we conclude that MoP is the least successful expansion blizzard ever released? Sales wise it already is, 2.8 millions in the first week versus 3.3 millions in the first 24 hours for cata. but sub wise, the is the lowest it's ever been since vanilla.

IMO that is based on marketing. Neither is a very good expansion, not bad, but nothing to hollar about. But, with cata you got this WORLD CHANGING event - the big bad dragons and the nastiest dragon of them all. People didn't know catas awfulness until they bought and played it. With MoP - you get the announced features that were probably a bit of a turnoff for some like pet battles and such, also there was all this unwarrented panda-hate calling the expansion childish. I think you got more people willing to try cata and then became disappointed versus MoP I think you had more that weren't even buying it to give it a shot. Ashame really, I came back after 2.5 years away to try MoP and I'm still playing 3 months later enjoying myself still.

P.S. as an alliance player it was worth re-subbing to MoP just to get to purge Dalaran.

Blizzard is gonna regret changing their model from wrath, easy gearing of alts Naxx was perfect in that regard tier gear/trinkets/Offhands all purchasable with valor not to mention the Community was Alive with puggable raids OS/Maly/Naxx and GDKP runs.

100% agree with his. Wrath was just more fun all around. But the expansion also had a lot of lore and the raids did as well. DKs were a great class with the best quest line in the game. again with a lot of lore. Monks are meh and I still have no clue who we are even supposed to be fighting this expansion. Pandaria just doesnt feel right. Everything feels like a bad April's fool joke.